For many homeowners, the bathtub has gone beyond simply a place to wash. It is now something that must be stylish and that must fit within the decor of the room, as well as the house as a whole. Thus, tubs today are often larger and have a shape other than the classic rounded rectangle.
One problem with creating a stylish bathtub is the spout, which is also a very expensive item in the bathtub. Rather than adding to the overall appearance of the tub, the spout typically is a large piece of metal which must be high and long enough to reach over the bath ledge. The end result is an obstacle the user must avoid.
In order to create a stylish design, therefore, it would be preferable to have a streamline design for a spout. Such a design must compete, however, with the practical functioning of the tub and the spout as the means to fill the tub. Another such function is the overflow protection provided by the overflow opening standard in bathtubs.
It is therefore desirable to have a device which can blend in to the styling of the tub and which can nonetheless perform the necessary function of filling the tub. A device which similarly cooperated with the standard overflow opening and which could be sold either as part of the tub or as a retrofit for existing tubs would also be preferable. A spout with a high flow rate is also important, particularly for today's larger tubs.
The applicant is aware of attempts in the prior art to combine a spout and a water overflow outlet in which the overflow outlet has been re-engineered to allow for the bath spout function. Reference may be had for example to U.S. Pat. No. 1,658,159 of Ernst et al., issued Feb. 7, 1928, U.S. Pat. No 1,994,789 of Redmond et al., issued Mar. 19, 1935, U.S. Pat. No. 4,722,102 of Neugart et al., issued Feb. 2, 1988, Canadian Patent 286,707 of Brotz, issued Jan. 22, 1929, and Canadian Patent 138,255. U.S. Pat. No. 3,156,931 of Holtman, issued Nov. 17, 1964 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,334,328 of Delepine, issued Jun. 15, 1982 each describe a means of generating a cascade flow of water into a bath, using a different structure from the applicant's and not cooperating with the existing overflow opening of the bath.